Crunch Hype

Lightspeed has picked up two more companies in what is shaping up to be an acquisition spree for the Canadian point-of-sale software provider. The company today announced that it would acquire e-commerce platform Ecwid for $500 million; and NuOrder, a B2B ordering platform servicing wholesales, brands and retailers, for $425 million. Together, the two deals underscore […]

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every weekend in your inbox. Hello and welcome back to The Station, a weekly newsletter dedicated to all the ways people and packages move (today and in the future) from Point A to […]

Many people in emerging markets depend on informal public transport to move across cities. But while there are ride-hailing and bus-hailing applications in some of these cities, there’s a dire need for journey-planning apps to improve mobility for users and reduce the time they spend commuting. South African-founded startup WhereIsMyTransport is one such company filling […]

France’s competition watchdog, L’Autorité de la concurrence, has fined Google up to €220 million (~$268M) in a case related to self-preferencing within the adtech market which the watchdog found constituted an abuse by Google of a dominant position for ad servers for website publishers and mobile apps. L’Autorité began looking into Google’s adtech business following complaints from […]

In 2014 Alexis Patjane was at a local hookah bar in Mexico City with some friends and the bar ran out of tobacco. They thought maybe they could buy some online and have it delivered to the bar in real-time, but it turns out that service didn’t exist. At the time, Patjane was running a […]

Jeff Bezos is going to be one of the passengers on his spaceflight company Blue Origin’s first ever human space launch on July 20. The Amazon founder announced the news via his Instagram on Monday morning, revealing that his brother Mark will also be coming along for the ride. Bezos and his brother will join […]

One of Google’s strong advantages in the world of online video has been the sheer size of YouTube: currently, the site has more than 2.3 billion monthly active users and over 500 hours of content uploaded every minute. Now, Google and YouTube are hoping to leverage some of that heft as it goes head to […]

Cash is the predominant method of sending and receiving payments in the Middle East. If you owe someone a cup of coffee or a trip over a long period, repaying via cash is your best bet. This is one problem out of many financial issues that haven’t been addressed in the region. The good news […]

1971 is the name of the year and an Apple TV+ documentary series billed as The Year That Music Changed Everything. It’s also the number of hours the former President kept up his blog From the Desk Of. No, that’s not true. But it is satisfactual. The thesis of the movie 1971 is that music […]

Fixing workplace misconduct reporting is a mission that’s snagged London-based Vault Platform backing from Google’s AI focused fund, Gradient Ventures, which is the lead investor in an $8.2 million Series A that’s being announced today. Other investors joining the round are Illuminate Financial, along with existing investors including Kindred Capital and Angular Ventures. Its $4.2M […]

Tesla CEO Elon has made it official and publicly cancelled plans to produce the Model S Plaid+, a supercharged version of the upcoming Plaid version of the electric vehicle that will be delivered to the first customers this month. Musk’s reason: Plaid is so good that another variant isn’t needed. “Model S goes to Plaid […]

There has been a wave of businesses over the past several years hoping to offer broadband internet delivered from thousands of satellites in low-earth orbit (LEO), providing coverage of most of the earth’s surface. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen excitement in the category. Companies and people that you have heard of — Bill […]

Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, I wrote about tech taking on Disney. This week, I’m talking about the search for a new crypto messiah. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny. The […]

Etsy, a marketplace for kitschy and creative DIY goods, acquired Depop, a hippy and thrifty marketplace for resale goods, for $1.625 billion this week. So, today we’ll discuss the tale of two marketplaces, a deal that has given us a peek into the evolving ethos of social shopping. Depop, for those that don’t know, is […]

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter for your weekend enjoyment.

Earlier today, TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec reported that the autonomous vehicle startup Aurora is close to finalizing a deal to merge with one of three blank-check companies that have been formed to date by renowned entrepreneurs Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus and a third partner in these deals, Michael Thompson, who long managed special situation funds. […]

Cruise, the autonomous vehicle subsidiary of GM that also has backing from SoftBank Vision Fund, Microsoft and Honda, has secured a permit that will allow the company to shuttle passengers in its test vehicles without a human safety operator behind the wheel. The permit, issued by the California Public Utilities Commission as part of its […]

Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

Despite the complications of meeting new people in the midst of a global pandemic, dating apps have shown a recent spike in both downloads and usage. Now, as COVID-19 vaccines become more widely available, it’s likely that this trend will continue. In other words, Tinder is anticipating a “post-pandemic uncuffing season,” and they’re rolling out […]

The average corporate security organization is largely ineffective at preventing breaches, IP theft and data loss. Why? The fragmented approach we’re currently using does not work.

Prospective contributors regularly ask us about which topics Extra Crunch subscribers would like to hear more about, and the answer is always the same.

Autonomous vehicle startup Aurora is close to finalizing a deal to merge with Reinvent Technology Partners Y, the newest special purpose acquisition company launched by LinkedIn co-founder and investor Reid Hoffman, Zynga founder Mark Pincus and managing partner Michael Thompson, according to several sources familiar with the talks. One of the sticking points is the […]

Let's take a closer look at the S-1 filed by Xometry, a Maryland-based service that connects companies with manufacturers with excess production capacity around the world.

We’re just five days away from TC Sessions: Mobility 2021, where thousands of mobility movers and shakers will dive deep into the game-changing technology that’s reinventing the way we move people — and pretty much everything else — around the world. Mobility 2021 is a jam-packed event, and we want to make sure you know […]

In software development, there is a concept called "technical debt." It describes the costs companies pay when they choose to build software the easy (or fast) way instead of the right way.

Facebook has been making plenty of one-off virtual reality studio acquisitions lately, but today the company announced that they’re buying something with wider ambitions — a Roblox-like game creation platform. Facebook shared that they’re buying Unit 2 Games, which builds a platform called Crayta. Like some other platforms out there, it builds on top of […]

The clock is ticking on former President Donald Trump’s ban from Facebook, formerly indefinite and now for a period of two years, the maximum penalty under a newly revealed set of rules for suspending public figures. But when the time comes, the company will reevaluate the ban and make a decision then whether to end […]

Through its Ministry of Information and Culture today, the Nigerian government announced its decision to suspend the activities of social media platform Twitter in the country. The statement, made by Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, and signed off by his media aide Segun Adeyemi, could see telecoms in the country prevent Nigerians from […]

As Tesla sales have risen, interest in the company has exploded, prompting investment and interest in the automotive industry, as well as the startup world. TezLab, a free app that’s like a Fitbit for a Tesla vehicle, is just one example of the numerous startups that have sprung up in the past few years as […]

Twitch announced today that it will release major updates to its Emotes this month to celebrate its 10th anniversary. These new features will include Animated Emotes, Follower Emotes and a Library for Emotes. Since the origin of the livestreaming platform for gamers, Emotes — Twitch’s version of emojis — have been a key component of […]

All things considered, Apple put together a pretty slick all-virtual WWDC last year. Where other companies like Microsoft and Google have opted for a more live (or live-style) experience, the company was parading its execs through a series of smooth drone shots and slick transitions. And with the first year under its belt, it will […]

There’s no crying in baseball, and there are certainly no shortcuts in building a successful startup. But, thanks to TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing and Fundraising on July 8-9, you don’t have to reinvent the freakin’ wheel. This two-day bootcamp offers early-stage founders (pre-seed through Series A) access to the startup ecosystem’s leading experts and […]

The BNPL space is flush with consumer interest but not yet awash in profits as major players battle one another for global spend share with a glut of smaller startups hot on their heels.

Facebook is facing a fresh pair of antitrust probes in Europe. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the EU’s Competition Commission both announced formal investigations into the social media giant’s operations today — with what’s likely to have been coordinated timing. The competition regulators will scrutinize how Facebook uses data from advertising customers […]

Guest articles are hugely popular with our startup audience, but right now, we are prioritizing submissions from authors who have expertise in the following areas …

Hello Equity podcast family, we’re back with another survey. This is our second go-round with collecting your feedback, notes, and vibes. The first survey we conducted back in the early-days of 2020 was super useful in helping us better tune the show. Since then, Equity has grown in frequency and we’ve expanded our production team. […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Despite it being a short week, as always, it was a busy busy time. Our regular Friday producer Grace was under the weather today, so Chris stepped in to help out. And as noted at the top of […]

Grupo Bursátil Mexicano (GBM) is a 35-year-old investment platform in the Mexican stock market. In its first three decades of life, GBM was focused on providing investment services to high net worth individuals and local and global institutions. Over the past decade, the Mexico City-based brokerage has ramped up its digital efforts, and, in the […]

SentinelOne, a late-stage security startup that helps organizations secure their data using AI and machine learning, has filed for an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In an S-1 filing on Thursday, the security company revealed that for the three months ending April 30, its revenues increased by 108% year-on-year to $37.4 million […]

The Bundeskartellamt, Germany’s very active competition authority, isn’t letting the grass grow under new powers it gained this year to tackle big tech: The Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has just announced a third proceeding against Google. The FCO’s latest competition probe looks very interesting as it’s targeting Google News Showcase — Google’s relatively recently launched […]

Indonesian healthcare startup Prixa has raised $3 million led by MDI Ventures and the Trans-Pacific Technology Fund (TPTF), with participation from returning investors including Siloam Hospitals Group. This brings Prixa’s total raised to $4.5 million since it launched in 2019. Co-founder and chief executive officer James Roring M.D., told TechCrunch in an email that the […]

An email has been going around the internet as a part of a release of documents related to Apple’s App Store based suit brought by Epic Games. I love this email for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that you can extrapolate from it the very reasons Apple has remained such […]

On-demand grocery delivery, which really came into its own with the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, continues to command huge attention from investors. The jury is still out on how people will use those services in the longer term, but in the meantime, the most ambitious of the startups in the field are raising big. […]

In its latest ambitious digital policy announcement, the European Union has proposed creating a framework for a “trusted and secure European e-ID” (aka digital identity) — which it said today it wants to be available to all citizens, residents and businesses to make it easer to use a national digital identity to prove who they […]

Trade schools are nothing new, but a new startup called Copeland thinks it can build a big business by bringing education about plumbing, drywall, cabinetry and more to the masses through high-quality pre-filmed classes online that feature industry pros and professional educators. If it sounds like a kind of MasterClass for all things construction, that’s […]

Toyota AI Ventures, Toyota’s standalone venture capital fund, has dropped the “AI” and is reborn as, simply, Toyota Ventures. The fund is commemorating its new identity by investing an additional $300 million in emerging technologies and carbon neutrality via two early-stage funds: the Toyota Ventures Frontier Fund and the Toyota Ventures Climate Fund. The introduction […]

A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its users’ content. This includes things like “faceprints and voiceprints,” the policy explained. Reached for comment, TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric […]

The Biden administration has replaced and expanded Trump-era restrictions on investing in certain Chinese firms deemed supportive of that country’s surveillance and military apparatus. Major tech, space and telecom companies are listed in the initial 59 covered by the executive order, with more to come by order of the Treasury. “I find that the use […]

Aurora, the autonomous vehicle company that acquired Uber ATG last year, has assembled a team of outside experts, shared new details about its operations in a self-assessment safety report and launched a website as part of a broader effort to win over consumers wary of the technology that they may someday share the road with, or […]

To scale sustainably, grow the customer base and mature to the point of exit, a SaaS startup needs to stand apart from the herd at every phase of its development.